Local Church Achieves Affordability Threshold that City Hall and Albany Could Not Accomplish
Trinity Church, the oldest, largest, and most prolific philanthropic organization in Lower Manhattan, is planning to build a 24-story residential tower containing 120 apartments on a vacant lot it owns at 50-58 Cliff Street in the Seaport neighborhood. Adjacent to Southbridge Towers and the St. Margaret’s House senior living facility (also developed by Trinity Church), the new building will feature 100-percent affordable housing.
The majority of these rent-protected units will be set aside for residents earning 30 to 80 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI), a federally determined metric used by housing advocates and policymakers to compare the costs of living in various parts of the nation. For New York City, 30 percent of AMI correlates to a range of $34,020 to $52,500 for households between one and five people, while 80 percent of AMI is between $90,720 and $157,500 (also for families of one to five people). Rents will be pegged to no more than one-third of household incomes for residents, with rent increases governed by those allowed for rent-stabilized units throughout New York City. Another 18 apartments (or 15 percent of the total), will be set aside for formerly homeless individuals and families transitioning into permanent housing.
Trinity issued a request for proposals in January 2025, and in July selected the Settlement Housing Fund (SHF) as the sole not-for-profit developer for the site, awarding that organization a 99-year ground lease. Since 1969, SHF has created or preserved more than 9,000 affordable homes throughout New York City, spread across 69 developments. The organization owns or manages 3,149 affordable units across 50 buildings, with more than 2,000 additional units currently in its development pipeline. SHS plans to staff the Cliff Street building with social workers who will offer on-site supportive services to residents.
Preliminary designs call for a shared, landscaped outdoor space at the ground floor, with an outdoor terrace space on the eighth floor (including a flexible venue to host events and community programming), along with a rooftop amenity space. The building will be designed according to passive house standards, with features that produce high energy efficiency but have a low carbon footprint. Construction is slated to begin in 2027, with a projected date of completion in 2030, but will be preceded by a brownfield cleanup to remediate any contaminants left over from former industrial uses of the site.
This development comes against the backdrop of recent struggles to create affordable housing in Lower Manhattan, a community that has lost more rent-protected homes in recent years than any other in New York State. Trinity’s decision to lease the site to a non-profit partner (rather than a commercial developer, who would have bid much higher), as well as to forgo the windfall that would have come from selling the lot outright (a conservative valuation would be in excess of $100 million) contrasts sharply with a string of recent decisions by government agencies to monetize publicly owned land in Lower Manhattan, rather than maximize local affordability.
Two recent cases underscore the disparity. Lower Manhattan community leaders pushed for years to have the land at Five World Trade Center (where an 80-story residential tower will soon begin rising) reserved entirely for affordable housing, but were rebuffed by State officials two years ago who capped this commitment at one-third of the building’s 1,200 units. More recently, the administration of then-Mayor Eric Adams designated Lower Manhattan as one of 12 communities across the five boroughs where affordable housing is sufficiently scarce to qualify for a new program designed to jumpstart the creation of moderately priced homes. That program, called the Mixed Income Market Initiative (MIMI), aimed to spur the development of multi-family rental projects that would be 30 percent market rate and 70 percent affordable. But when the City decided to develop the publicly owned lot at 100 Gold Street (also adjacent to Southbridge Towers) last year, it abandoned the pledge to seek 70 percent affordability, and instead designated only 30 percent of the units as rent-protected units in the future complex.
At a January 12 meeting of the Land Use Committee of Community Board 1, Thehbia Hiwot, Trinity’s managing director of the Housing and Homelessness Initiatives, explained, “Trinity Church has been a part of New York City and a part of Lower Manhattan for over 325 years. Our mission is very simple. We work for justice, we serve our neighbors, and we build community. We do that through youth programs, music, and educational events. We also provide meals for those in need, along with 20 weekly worship services. And another way that we believe that we can live that mission is through housing. The Cliff Street site sits right next to St. Margaret’s House, a building that Trinity developed over 40 years ago to provide affordable housing for seniors. Back then, that was a pretty bold step.”
“And now, we’re going continue that commitment in Lower Manhattan, where new affordable housing is at very low supply,” she continued. “Recent reporting shows that in Manhattan, the average rent is now over $5,400 a month. Across the City, evictions are skyrocketing and, in this community, demand is especially high for truly affordable housing. That’s why Trinity decided to dedicate the site to 100 percent affordable housing. We are doubling down on our commitment to do our part in expanding affordable housing opportunities for New York City, and particularly for this neighborhood.”
Vittoria Fariello, a co-founder of the Coalition for 100 Percent Affordable Housing at Five World Trade Center (the grassroots organization that lobbied for maximizing the number of rent-restricted homes at the tower), said, “anytime we have a building that is 100 percent affordable, it is a huge win in addressing the issue, because it shows that this can be done. Our coalition commissioned a study that showed how a very expensive, publicly owned site could be built entirely as affordable building, so hopefully government can take a cue from Trinity.”
Mariama James, another co-founder of the Coalition for 100 Percent Affordable Housing at Five World Trade Center, and a resident of Southbridge Towers, said, “we welcome Trinity Church’s 120-unit affordable project far more eagerly than the staggering 3,800 units proposed for 100 Gold Street. One is a community-minded contribution; the other is an overwhelming densification that we oppose entirely.”
Reflecting on the brownfield cleanup planned for the Cliff Street site, Ms. James added, “even with the smaller projects like Trinity’s, our primary concern remains the health of our residents. We need concrete guarantees on how we will be protected from toxins and construction debris.”